Technical Field
The invention relates to field of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology. More particularly, the invention relates to intelligent IVR Systems having predictive technology that enhances the customer experience.
Description of the Background Art
Interactive voice response (IVR) technology is deployed between a customer and a customer care executive to automate the process of serving the customer at least in part. IVR systems are often criticized as being unhelpful and difficult to use due to their poor design and the fact that they tend to show a lack of appreciation of the customer's needs.
A properly designed IVR system should connect customers to their desired service promptly and with minimum complexity. Present IVR technology handles all customers in a “one size fits all” manner, taking the customer through a series of menus before arriving at the desired service. This makes the call time-consuming, which leads to customer frustration and which gives customers a feeling that they are facing a rigid, impersonal system. This results in a low score on customer satisfaction. Present IVR systems treat repeated calls in the same predefined manner without making any effort to know the background of recent calls, such as whether the customer just had a bad call experience and is retrying, or any similar dissatisfaction.
No effort is presently put toward understanding the exact need of the customer by providing the customer with the best suitable option, thus helping the customer to get desired information in lesser time, while enhancing the customer's experience.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide method and apparatus for intent prediction and proactive service offering.